Sunday, July 5, 2009

Sojourner Truth’s original name was Isabella, but, as she herself explained: “When I left the house of bondage I left everything behind. I wasn’t going to keep nothing of Egypt on me, an’ so I went to the Lord an’ asked Him to give me a new name. An’ the Lord game me Sojourner, because I was to travel up and down the land, showing the people their sins an’ being a sign unto them. Afterward I told the Lord I wanted another name, because everybody else had two names, an’ the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people.”

From the New York Evening Post, and published in the Cinncinnati Enquirer Newspaper, Saturday, December 8, 1883, Roll 86, page 10, Column 6, Allen County Public Library, microfilm newspaper collection, Fort Wayne, Indiana
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”
“Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.”
Two quotes from, "Ain't I a Woman?" Sojourner Truth speech at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, December 1851, from the webpage of Fordham: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html
Sojourner Truth's bust in Washington, DChttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/sojourner-truth-becomes-first-female-bust-installed-in-us-capitol-with-help-from-first-lady-michelle.html

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Lucy MacLean was a daughter of an American Revolution Patriot, known as a belle and an authoress of some merit. This is her story as written in 1883.

While in New York the other day a gentleman of this place noticed a gray-haired woman begging at one of the Park Row entrances to the Post-Office. He was informed that the woman’s name was Lucy E. MacLean, and that she was a person of literary tendencies. Residents of this place recognize the name as that of a singular and unhappy woman well known here; whose strange actions have caused much comment here. Her mania for bustles was a predominating characteristic. In summer and winter alike she wore a dark calico dress, with a long full skirt and a waist of a style in vogue twenty or twenty-five years ago. She is tall, and in other days was doubtless graceful.She is the daughter of Captain MacLean, who served in the Revolutionary War, and who afterward moved with his family to Ohio, and from there to Springville, Erie County, and this state. Lucy Maclean and her sister Sarah moved from there about twenty-five years ago to this place. When the two girls were young Lucy was a great belle, was pretty, talented and gay; and her admirers were many. She also wrote poetry of some merit, and many of her productions found their way to the pages of Graham’s Godey’s and the Knickerbockers. One of their best pieces was a satire on a schoolmaster who had unintentionally, as it appeared afterward, given her offense. This had a great run in the newspapers of that day. She had an extensive correspondence with the literary men of the day, and among others with Mr. Longfellow. While yet in the bloom of her youth she became acquainted with Salmon P. Chase, with whom, it is said, she corresponded. It was not long after the correspondence was terminated that her friends notices that her actions were strange. She manifested more and more crazy impulses until finally she became hopelessly insane. For twenty years she has roamed about aimlessly, dependent upon the charity of her sister.Some of Lucy’s habits are singular. For years she haunted the banks of the city, continually inquiring for remittances that never came. Finally she gave this up, and took to borrowing or trying to borrow, small sums of money. Her usual way was to enter a store when the proprietor was busily engaged, apologize for her intrusion in a lady-like manner, and asked for the loan of from twenty-five cents to $2- never more that that and never less. A refusal had no effect, as she would return the next day with an apology and like request. She has frequently been to New York, and several years ago she went to Washington to certain members of Congress about a subsidy she claimed she was entitled to as an authoress. It is a mystery how she traveled, as she had no money. Some say she did not use any money at all, but trusted to the gallantry of the conductors not to put her off their trains between stations. And when she had gone as far on one train as possible to wait patiently for the next Some of her bazarites are shown by an incident that happened here five or six years ago. Theodore Tilton was to lecture one evening, and she took a stand at the foot of the stairs, awaiting his coming. When he approached with two gentlemen she went toward him, touched him on the shoulders and said: “Mr. Tilton, I want you to pay me the money you own me.” Tilton was so astonished that for some time he was unable to say anything, but as length he asked here for what he was indebted to her. “You have been using my lecture long enough,” she said,” and now I want you to pay me for it.”